


Prompt: Some blessed Hope

by EssayOfThoughts



Series: MCU Maximoff Oneshots [61]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Codependency, Compulsion, Gen, Loki is a Manipulative Bastard, Magic, Manipulation, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Wanda Using Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-09
Updated: 2016-04-09
Packaged: 2018-06-01 05:37:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6502972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EssayOfThoughts/pseuds/EssayOfThoughts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Oh!” Lorelei says, bouncing off the counter, standing by Pietro, coiling one hand over his shoulder. <i>“I</i> know what you could do for me.” Her gaze fixes on Wanda, held down as she is by two lackeys, her hands splayed out flat before her. <i>“You</i> can break her bones for me. Her left hand, if you’d be so kind.”</p><p>Wanda closes her eyes and focuses on the crystalline cover of her brother’s screaming mind as he plucks up a hammer and walks forward.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prompt: Some blessed Hope

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wandasmaximoffs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wandasmaximoffs/gifts).
  * Inspired by [And when the stars threw down their spears](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6462742) by [EssayOfThoughts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EssayOfThoughts/pseuds/EssayOfThoughts). 
  * Inspired by [For me, my love](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6270190) by [EssayOfThoughts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EssayOfThoughts/pseuds/EssayOfThoughts). 



> A sequel to my three-part fic [_And when the stars threw down their spears_](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6462742/chapters/14791840), fic title taken from Thomas Hardy's [_The Darkling Thrush_](http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173590). Written for a prompt on my tumblr, readable [Here](http://essayofthoughts.tumblr.com/post/142524322195/what-if-loki-lets-lorelei-loose-bc-wanda-left).

**i.**  
The halls of the palace are vast and empty as Loki stalks down to the cells. 

Well, they aren’t _empty,_  but people do tend to get out of his way while they still labour under the delusion that he is Odin. He refreshes the magic of the glamour as he walks, each step marked by the soft clink of Gungnir against the hard stone, as perfect as a pacestick.

Loki makes his ways down to the cells of Asgard. He hates the cells, and remembers, so very well, his own imprisonment there. Some cells are full. Some cells are empty. Some cells have only a very few or a single prisoner within their clear walls. Loki walks to the end, to the cell that holds but one.

“My _king_ ,” says the sorceress Lorelei, voice well warped through the device around her neck. “What _can_  I do for you?”

 

* * *

 

 **ii.**  
Lorelei lands exactly where she had the last time she’d come to Earth. She thinks, possibly, this is some joke on the part of Odin-Loki, some challenge of her skills. After all, she supposes, she hadn’t done an especially good job the last time she’d come down. Far too conspicuous. This time, she resolves, she will make sure to question people more carefully when they fall under her control.

 _Hel_ , she thinks, _maybe it will give more opportunities for fun._

 

* * *

 

 **iii.**  
“We’ve got a disturbance, middle of Death Valley. Looks like the Bifrost.”

Agent turns to Agent.

“Send in a team in, check whats happened, offer help if need be.”

 

* * *

 

 **iv.**  
Several hours later they lose contact.

Information, passed up the chain, reaches the Avengers.

 

* * *

 

 **v.**  
“So,” Steve says. “Something - probably an Asgardian something - has landed in the desert. We’ve got no news from Odin-ki, nor anything from Thor, and whatever it is its taken an entire team out of contact. We need intel, and we need it quickly.”

“I could run it?” Pietro offers, glancing around the table. “Get me in range, I can be in and out in… five minutes?”

“We’ll want comms on you,” Steve says and Pietro shrugs.

“Didn’t the team have comms?” Sam asks. “Didn’t seem to help anything.”

“I will be in his mind,” Wanda promises. “If it is shorting out electrical communications then we can use mental.”

“Does anyone want to know why Odin-ki hasn’t contacted us about it yet, or sent someone of his own down?” Natasha asks. “Asgard doesn’t know its him yet, do they?”

Wanda shakes her head. “But I have told you. He must have known I would tell you, so he cannot contact you without risking that.” She pauses, considers. “Besides…,” she says, and Pietro finishes.

“He may have sent whatever this is because Wanda left.”

 

* * *

 

 **vi.**  
_I’m here,_  the twins sing into each other’s brains, recurring over and over, echoing in perfect reassuring harmony.

“He’s fine,” Wanda murmurs to the others, sitting as she is with her eyes closed in the back of the air-conditioned van. She can feel the sun on Pietro’s skin outside, so very warm, and the cool of the wind whipping against his body. He’s not terribly fond of the goggle-glasses he’s been given for when he’s running, but he appreciates them now, in sunlight mode, keeping the glare from hurting his eyes.

 _I’m here,_ the twins sing into each other’s minds, and Wanda murmurs, under the constant push and pull of it, _What do you see?_

 _Nothing yet_ , Pietro replies. _I will tell you when I do. I will show you_.

 

* * *

 

 **vii.**  
Wanda sees the woman through Pietro’s sight in the few moments before the woman speaks and she is shut out of her brother’s brain. Wanda feels it, feels the snapping magic reaching out and holding her brother’s mind captive, as cruel as crystal, as solid as stone. This is not the magic the sceptre held, which her scarlet was alike enough to to fool and free Doctor Cho from. This is a person’s own magic, full of intent and power, and constant remaking, and she is thrown out of her brother’s mind with so much force she is _reeling_.

 _Pietro_ , she thinks. “Pietro,” she gasps. 

“Wanda?” says Vision, his hand light and gently reassuring against her shoulder.

“It is a person,” Wanda gasps. “It is a person. She has locked me out of Pietro’s mind.” Wanda stretches out scarlet fingers towards her brother’s mind. It is there still, thinking as it ever has, but it is behind a wall of crystal and ice and she cannot break through it. Wanda traces the lines of the stone, finds the mind it comes from, the source of the crystal stalactite, and finds the other minds, branching off from it, a spiderwebbing creation of binding but breakable stone.

“Wanda,” Vision says, his voice gentle. “Are you all right? Can you reconnect to Pietro’s mind?”

Wanda tries, Wanda _tries_ , but even her strongest scarlet cannot break through the layer of gold-amber crystal that coats her brother’s mind.

 

* * *

 

 **viii.**  
Vision follows her, at a slight distance, when they get back. Wanda has left a slip of scarlet, chasing around her brother’s mind, ready to let her know if he breaks free, on his own or otherwise, but she is pacingly worried, seeing her brother as much under another’s control as she had been under Loki’s. 

She wonders, distantly, if this is why he sent this one. Someone who could trap her brother, bind him to her, and force Wanda to decide, to fight an Asgardian or to go begging back to Loki.

 _No,_  Wanda thinks. _I will not take his help ever again._

In her room she finds the heated spot where she leaves E much of the day and lifts her, looping her around her neck, Eithne’s head resting on her left shoulder and Estrie’s on her right. “My friend,” she murmurs in Sokovian. “I need your help to remember spellwork. Someone has bound my brother.”

As one the amphisbaena lifts their heads.

 

* * *

 

 **ix.**  
Vision helps, in his own way. His mind is calm and stable and a peaceful presence to have nearby as she and E search through all their memories to find the magics of Binding and the way they work and the ways they may be broken. Even the report she is given does not help, only making it harder to pin down what it is that this Lorelei does.

“I wish we had the library still,” Wanda murmurs to E at one point. “I may end up having to freeform magic to break the enchantment and that is all too dangerous.”

“It is for Pietro though,” says Eithne softly.

“For Pietro we will do anything.” adds Estrie.

“He is your brother, so he is ours,” they say together.

 

* * *

 

 **x.**  
“It is some kind of love magic or emotional magic,” Wanda says waving a hand. Her other hand is holding her chin, and she wants nothing more than to fall asleep at the table, even as she tries to explain. “I think it may be a version of sex magic. It is based on desire, on who she desires _as well_ as who she desires to have under her control, and then it is tied to her voice, like the story of _rusalki_.”

The boys look baffled. 

“Slavic myth,” Natasha explains. “Women who live in rivers and seduce men with their voices.”

Wanda nods. “The report Fury gave said that her voice only affects men? So you are all at risk. Natasha and I, Hill, Sharon, any other female agents, we are the only ones who will be immune.”

“I could see if Hope could help?” Scott Lang offers. “She has her own suit.”

There are nods around the table and Scott leaves, pulling his phone from his pocket.

“The report said she was _born_  with her powers,” says Steve.

Wanda can only shrug, E slipping gently around the frame of her shoulders. “Some people with natural sorcery skill get natural gifts. Loki can assume forms, make himself look like another humanoid thing if he wants. Frost Giant, Asgardian - it is easy for him. He has always been able to. This is Lorelei’s. A specific magical skill had from birth. It is still tied to the classifications.”

“Has anyone noticed all the nasties on Asgard have names beginning with L?” Scott asks, returning.

Natasha fixes him with a flat stare. “There’s _two_ of them, total.”

 

* * *

 

 **xi.**  
“Right,” Steve says. “We have the people who should be immune to Lorelei. Do we have _enough_  people to be able to handle the team she already has under her control, the various other people she’s gathered, and _Pietro?”_

There is quiet for a moment. “I don’t think we do,” Natasha murmurs. “If we knew whether or not Vision would be affected then we might have a better chance but-” she glances to Wanda, Wanda shakes her head. “If even Wanda doesn’t know how this magic might affect him we have to play it safe. And that means we can’t deal with a team of trained agents, a group of unknowns, and a speedster.”

The room is silent. “So we’re screwed,” says Sam. “Just,” he waves a hand, “we have no hope.” He sighs, long and loud. “That’s not what the Avengers _are_.”

“I could do it,” Wanda says and her voice is small. E is whispering in her ear, fragments of a plan, and Wanda is piecing together the rest on her own. “If we are correct Lorelei was sent here for _me_ , because I left Asgard. If that is true she would not be permitted to hurt me, and even if she _is_  I have my scarlet. I could get in, I could use magic to free them-”

“You said you did not have a spell which could do that,” Vision interrupts softly.

“I can make one,” she says. “Estrie reminded me of blood magic and debt magic. I can call on blood to free Pietro, and on debt to Bind Lorelei for Binding him.”

There is a moment of quiet, and Wanda glances around the table.

“Are you sure?” Steve asks. “You’re the only one here who knows anything about magic, so we’re going to have to trust you for this. Are you _sure_  you can do this?”

Wanda isn’t, Wanda _really_ isn’t, she can feel the fear trying to eat its way up and out of the crypts of her mind, trying to spill out of the graves and into the nave of the cathedral. Wanda breathes in scarlet, and wipes away the cathedral, lets out the synagogue it was built out of. “I can do this,” she says.  _(I must do this,_  she thinks.) “I will get Pietro out.”  _(Or I will die trying.)_ “I will bind Lorelei.” _(Or I will kill her.)_ “I can do this.”

 

* * *

 

 **xii.**  
Wanda hates this. Wanda hates this, the silence of her mind, echoing and echoing, vast halls of silence and clattering noise, spaces that usually Pietro’s blue winds would speed through to help her find peace, just as her scarlet stayed in his mind, keeping his speed from hurting him.

Wanda hates this, and Wanda walks across the flats of the desert towards the distant building all the same.

 _Some things_ , she knows, _Are more important than personal feeling. Lorelei has taken my **brother**  from me._

 

* * *

 

 **xiii.**  
There are many there, at the building. Most of them do not seem to register her. She knows this is not the work of her scarlet (her scarlet cannot work its way through the stone that surrounds their minds) but appreciates it all the same. She knows that, eventually, one of them will spot her, one of them will march her in to see Lorelei, and Wanda will have to think and decide fast how she is going to get herself and Pietro out and bind Lorelei.

(She hopes, in her heart of hearts, on the dais at the fore of the synagogue of her mind, that it will not be Pietro to find her and take her, with blank eyes, to Lorelei.)

(It is, all the same.)

 

* * *

 

 **xiv.**  
“Oh!” Lorelei says, bouncing off the counter, standing by Pietro, coiling one hand over his shoulder. “ _I_  know what you could do for me.” Her gaze fixes on Wanda, held down as she is by two lackeys, her hands splayed out flat before her. “ _You_  can break her bones for me. Her left hand, if you’d be so kind.”

Wanda closes her eyes and focuses on the crystalline cover of her brother’s screaming mind as he plucks up a hammer and walks forward.

 

* * *

 

**xv.**  
_No no no please, no no, please, no, please no nono **nonono**_

**Break her bones**

_nonononononono-notmy **sister** -nopleasenonononoNO **NO**_

**Break her bones**

_NONONONONONOPLEASENO NOT WANDA **PLEASE**_

**BREAK HER BONES**

Pietro brings the hammer down on Wanda’s hand.

 

* * *

 

 **xvi.**  
Wanda is left with one hand broken, one arm broken. When she is dumped into a room, to await the next time Lorelei decides she might interested in whatever game she has Wanda finds the pain in her mind, shuts off her ability to register it and sets her arm as best she can. There is, she knows, no one watching her. The men under Lorelei’s command have only the one order: _Do not let the witch escape_.

Wanda doesn’t want to escape. Wanda has a better plan. Wanda bites her lip until it bleeds.

 

* * *

 

 **xvii.**  
Lorelei feels it, snaking through the building, scarlet as blood, strangling the connection of control she has to one of the men she’s made hers. It’s bright and dangerous and _angry_  and it is as much a serpent as the one who sent her.

 _Magic_.

It coils around the one called Pietro ( _pretty name_ , Lorelei had thought, _for a pretty young man. Needs a shave though.)_  and coils around the bond she has made that binds him to her service.

 _Mine_ , it says, scarlet and blood, blood magic calling kin to kin just as powerfully as any emotions could.

 _My price_ , it says, and Lorelei is _scared_.

This is not emotion magic, that art she knows all too well. This is not even simply blood magic, binding kin to kin in a way that she can, with effort, break.

This is _weregild_ magic, _debt_  magic, price demanded for crime committed. The witch is calling a price for what she had done to her and to her brother.

The scarlet strengthens, stretches out around the webbing stalactites of Lorelei’s spell, and begins to _crush._

 

* * *

 

 **xviii.**  
Pietro feels the crystalline hold on his mind _shatter,_ like a glass squeezed too hard. He feels, following it, the bond to Wanda, bright and glowing and whispering  _come and get me free_  in scarlet words into his mind. Pietro breathes a free breath and finds his sister.

 

* * *

 

 **xix.**  
Wanda does not want to have knock her brother out, but she has no better option. She can feel the way his mind is turning, fixing on her broken arm, her broken hand. _Sleep_  she sends into his mind, bright and bold and blinding against the bleak blue of his mind. Pietro quietly crumples.

“The last person to take my brother from me is dead,” Wanda says. “I ripped out his heart.”

Lorelei blanches, tries to scramble back until she hits the counter, then shrinks to the floor. Wanda’s lip curls.

“Do not play _frightened_. I know the stories of what you can do. You fought the Lady Sif; that is no mean feat.”

“You,” Lorelei whispers, “Are not Sif.”

Wanda smiles.

(It is not a nice smile.)

“No,” she says. “I am not.”

 

* * *

 

 **xx.**  
Lorelei is  _scared,_ for once in her millennia-long life. The witch, standing in front of her, scarlet in her hands, magic in the air, and chasing its way in gold and scarlet up her arms, even the one hanging limp and broken (by _her_ order, by the witch’s own _brother’s_ hands) is not scared at all.

She kneels on one knee before Lorelei. Her voice is terribly, terrifyingly, soft. “The last one to take my brother from me was made of metal. He had more than a hundred bodies. We killed them, every one, and I ripped out his heart. He was made of vibranium, do you know how hard that is to break?”

Lorelei knows, Lorelei _knows_. She nods.

“Yes,” says the witch. “And you, you did more than simply _take_  him from me. You have made him _hurt_ me.”

(The witch does not look to her arm, but Lorelei does.)

“To him, he who took my brother from me, I showed him how it felt to me. I could not show him how it had felt to Pietro. Pietro was dead. But here? Now? He lives. He breathes. He _hurts_. Shall I show you what you have done to my brother?”

 

* * *

 

 **xxi.**  
Lorelei _screams_. Magic, her magic, the magic that has been with her since her first days is peeled out of her by blood and scarlet and the magic of debts and blood-price, ripped out of her very _being_.

Wanda tries not to smile as she works a Binding Spell so complex she had never dared try it when she had first heard of it on Asgard. (She had not the focus then. She does now. Lorelei has hurt her _brother.)_

When Lorelei stops screaming she is crumpled. Her magic is returned, and it is _bound_. Wanda takes great satisfaction in telling her so.

“Speak,” she suggests. “Try to trap them to you. You cannot. Not anyone, not anymore. And each time you try you will come closer to burning yourself. If you try too much you will burn to death. If not, if you find someone to remove this spell, then they might burn, if you have tried too much.”

“Loki,” whispers Lorelei. “He could do it.”

“Yes,” Wanda says, and it is hard to keep her hands from shaking when she talks about him. “He could. But I very much doubt he _will_ , when you have failed him.”

Wanda can see it in Lorelei’s eyes that she knows this to be true.

“Now,” Wanda says, standing up, dusting her knees off, flicking her fingers towards Lorelei’s face with a scatter of red. “Sleep.”

Lorelei sees a wave of scarlet and nothing more.

 

* * *

 

 **xxii.**  
Agents swoop in once Wanda gives the all-clear. There is a cell waiting for Lorelei, and the team waiting for Wanda and Pietro. (Pietro, still asleep, carried out by Wanda’s scarlet.)

“I will need my arm and my hand seen to,” she says. “But when he wakes I must speak to him. Alone.”

 

* * *

 

 **xxiii.**  
“Look at me,” Wanda says, touching her unbroken fingers to her brother’s jaw. Her arm and hand are healing steadily, with the half-pint of blood she was given from his own veins, but she does not want him fixating on those again. “Pietro,” she murmurs. “Look at me. Not my arm. Look at _me.”_

Pietro, slowly, lifts his gaze to hers.

“It’s not your fault. Not anymore than what I did for Loki.” Wanda’s voice is quiet and incredibly gentle. She can see his mind, turning, trying to slip back into the self-loathing cycle. She wants to send in scarlet, snap him out of it, but dares not just yet, even as he looks away. E curls up against her chin, her tongue licking out gently against her skin.

“Pietro,” she says. Her voice is firm. Her hand grips his jaw. “Pietro _look_  at me.”

His eyes are bright and blue and filled with guilt, and Wanda can feel the cycle in his mind returning even as he again looks away. 

_(I did this, I couldn’t stop Lorelei, I hurt Wanda, I failed to protect her, I hurt her, I hurt her, I **hurt** her)_

“Pietro,” she murmurs, and lifts her hand, tugs scarlet through. Pietro’s hand rises, as fast as a fly.

“Please” Pietro says, his hand gentle around her scarlet fingers. His eyes meet hers. “Don’t. Not again. I don’t want to be controlled again.” Wanda has not heard him sound so small for long, long years.

Wanda wisps the scarlet away. “I won’t,” she promises. “But _please_ focus on me. Just for now.”

“I _hurt_  you.”

The horror in his voice is bone deep, is aching, shines from his eyes and his mind in bright sickly blue-grey, like an oil slick on the ocean. His mind spins with it, dizzying and nauseous, and Wanda sees his thoughts cycling all over again.

 

* * *

 

 **xxiv.**  
Pietro is startled when Wanda presses her lips to his. They had agreed _against_ ever doing this, even if they ever should want to, that this kind of closeness was not right, was not wise, was _dangerous_. And after _this_ , after he had _hurt_  her-

Wanda’s lips lift off his.

“Look at me,” she says. “Focus on me. Listen to me.” Pietro’s eyes are wide and bright and blue and fixed on Wanda’s certain face.  _“It is not your fault.”_  He blinks, and Wanda’s fingertips are gentle on his jaw. “It is _not_  your fault, and even if it was _I would want you to live_. You are my brother,” she says and her words are as gentle as a breath. Her fingers rise, comb through the tangles of his hair. “Lorelei is the one to blame. She made you do it. She could have made you do much worse, and risked your sanity far more. But Pietro?”

Pietro is still confused, but Wanda is shining and _certain_. He is focussed. He can stay focussed. He blinks once, a slow and certain acknowledgement.

_“I forbid you to die.”_

 

* * *

 

 **xxv.**  
When Clint arrives Pietro is curled against Wanda, crying as he has not cried since they were eleven and a half.

“Hey,” he says softly from the doorway. “They called me in to help. I’ve got some experience with mind control.”

Wanda shifts slightly, holds Pietro closer where his face is pressed against her collarbones, just under where E loops around her neck, and indicates the space she’s made. Pietro is, she knows, not listening, only weeping and trying to process the fact that, of all the people in the world, he had been made to hurt _her_. She leans against Clint.

“I do not know what to do,” she murmurs, and Clint’s arm wraps gently around her shoulders, the same way Vati’s had when she’d had nightmares as a child. “He’s not focussing on it now, but he does not want me influencing his mind. I cannot chase the nightmares away.”

Clint’s hand rises, and starts gently combing her hair. She sees the image bubble up in his mind, him doing this with children, a boy and a girl, who look much like him. He sighs. “Sometimes,” he says, “All you can do is wait, and be there. Nat got me out from the control that I was under-” - Wanda sees a flurry of images, a glimpse of the sceptre, a glimpse of Loki - “-and Laura helped me with the nightmares afterwards. But sometimes all you can do is wait and hope and help where you can. Your brother’s got all of us willing to help him, and more than that, he’s still got _you_.”

Wanda lets herself tuck against Clint, pulls Pietro more firmly onto her lap, lets him curl small against her as she had so many times against him. “Yes,” she says, combing her fingers through her brother’s hair. “But he’s focussing on what Lorelei had him do to me. Hurting me.” She tilts her head down, presses a kiss to Pietro’s hair. “He has always sworn to _protect_  me. Ever since we were ten. He does not know what to _do_.”

Clint sighs, a long one, a tired one, and his hand rests gently on her shoulder. “You two are codependent,” he says. “You two haven’t been apart a day in your lives if you can help it, and since you were ten you’ve only had each other. That is not a healthy relationship; but who am I to judge - no one on this team is exactly _healthy_  except possibly Thor and Vision. It’s going to affect you both. Eventually something always happens that’s outside the parameters of what your relationship allows you to cope with, and either you find a new way to be, or … or you stop it.”

Pietro may not be listening, but his arms around Wanda tighten. Wanda’s hand in her brother’s hair shakes, her knuckles pale. “ _No_ ,” she says. “We have always been each other’s strength. One _veštica_ from out of _space_ is not going to change that.”

She can hear the smile in Clint’s voice as he huffs. “Yeah,” he says. “I suspected as much. So you’re gonna have to find a new way to be. Do you think you–”

“We already are,” Wanda breaks in softly. “Usually Pietro would be comforting me to help himself stay calm. I have not comforted him like this since we were ten and trapped in rubble.” 

“Right,” Clint says. “Do you want me to stay with you both?”

The room around them is dim now, since Wanda has not turned on the lights. There’s light from the hallway outside, but beyond the door the windows show dark fields, dark woods beyond, the dark night sky above. Pietro, wide awake, full of fear and self-loathing that she is not allowed to send away, is curled against her still sobbing quietly. Clint beside her is leaning back against the wall, pulling the blue blankets of Pietro’s bed up and tucking them around her brother, all while trying not to jolt her.

“Please,” she says eventually. “It is… it is _good_ to have someone who understands.”

 

* * *

 

 **xxvi.**  
It is morning before Pietro falls asleep, and Wanda follows quickly, her scarlet pale and gentle in his mind, only present enough to keep his perception from warping with his speed and to tell her if he wakes. They are wrapped around each other on Pietro’s bed and Clint tucks blue blankets around them both before leaving in search of coffee.

The pot is already on when he arrives in the group kitchen - Tony, he suspects - and he pours himself a mug.

“How’re the twins doing?” Nat asks from her seat in the corner. She’s curled by the window, a mug of tea in her hands, steam curling up around her face. Other than the two of them, the room is empty.

“Sleeping,” he says. “Wanda’s managed to talk her brother down, but he spent most of the night processing. Wanda… I think she needed something like this to help her focus.”

“What happened?” Nat’s hair is gold-red in the early morning light, like coils of copper and blood. “Wanda wouldn’t tell anyone, she was too focussed on her brother.”

In Clint’s hands his coffee mug turns slowly as he shifts it in a circle, careful not to risk burning his hands from the heat. “Lorelei ordered Pietro to break Wanda’s hand and arm, from what I can tell.”

There is the distinct sound of an indrawn breath. “Jesus,” murmurs Nat.

 

* * *

 

 **xxvii.**  
It’s mid-morning before they begin to glimpse the others, trooping in piecemeal in search of caffeine or food, and an hour or so after noon before the twins emerge, Pietro following closely behind Wanda as ever, but seeming far smaller than usual.

“Come on,” she murmurs softly. “Sit, I will get you some tea.”

The others try not to think too loudly the comparisons they make between the twins now, as Pietro recovers, and the twins before, when it was Wanda in need of help, perfect mirror images of moments.

 

* * *

 

 **xxviii.**  
It’s around three thirty in the afternoon when, without warning, Thor appears in the middle of the room, hammer in hand, and somewhat bruised.

“Thor!” says Steve, moving to stand. Thor waves a hand.

“I am not truly here. This is a… Jane said you would call them Holograms?” Once everyone has nodded he continues. “We’ve taken back Asgard from … from my brother. Sif, the Warriors Three and I, we’re keeping everything under control.” There is a collective sigh of relief. “However,” Thor continues, “We have not managed to find where he was keeping our father - even Heimdall cannot see - and it seems he set one of our more dangerous prisoners loose.”

Wanda’s hands are gentle over her brother’s ears as she murmurs, “Lorelei.”

“Yes,” Thor says, looking quite surprised. “Have you-”

“I captured her,” Wanda says. “We have her here. She will not bind anyone again.” 

Thor seems to consider and nods slowly. “I invite you all,” he says, “To Asgard. I would appreciate any help you can offer in finding my father, and I would like to show you my home.”

 

* * *

 

 **xxix.**  
“We can’t all go,” Steve says. “Vision makes sense, as he can wield the hammer, and that’s supposed to be important there. Natasha, you’ve managed to manipulate Loki before, Clint, you’re good at getting a bigger picture-”

“And I’d like to stay home,” he interrupts. “Seriously, sir, putting me in a place with Loki is a bad idea, and I promised Laura I wasn’t going to be doing this anymore. I’d like a break.”

Steve is quiet, considering. “Wanda,” he says eventually. “I know you probably don’t want to go back there, especially not after what has just happened, but-”

“We will go,” she says. Beside her, holding tightly to her unbroken hand, Pietro nods. “I was taught magic by Loki himself. If anyone can find his handiwork I can.”

 

* * *

 

 **xxx.**  
Wanda is certain of the strength of her Binding on Lorelei, but she still casts a Spell of Silence over the sorceress before allowing Pietro anywhere near her. They stand in a close group. Natasha holding Lorelei’s arm, Wanda and Vision acting as further buffers between Pietro and the sight of Lorelei. E slips Eithne’s head and neck around Pietro’s wrist, while Estrie stays on Wanda’s.

“I’ve got you,” Wanda whispers to Pietro in the Sokovian of their homeland. “If she tries to hurt you I will _kill_  her.”

Lorelei, hearing, tenses. Pietro, his hand still in Wanda’s, relaxes. Around them the Bifrost illuminates them in a rainbow.

 

* * *

 

 **xxxi.**  
“Heimdall,” Wanda says when they arrive, and receives a measured nod in return. 

“My lady,” he says. “I thank you for coming. Prince Thor waits outside, with guards to take the sorceress to her cell.”

Natasha, still holding firmly to Lorelei’s arm, begins to stride towards the doorway, Vision following slowly. Wanda stays still, and looks at Heimdall.

“Thank you,” she says. “For sending me home.”

“My lady,” Heimdall replies, “It was my honour.”

“I do not think,” she says, “I am anyone’s lady anymore.”

 

* * *

 

 **xxxii.**  
“Friends!” Thor greets them, as soon as they reach the throne room. Pietro had been eager to run the length of the Bifrost, if only to escape the sight of Lorelei, but Wanda had had him wait just within the city for Natasha and Vision.

“It’s safe here,” she promised him while they had waited. “She will not escape, and I can protect myself from him. We are _safe_.”

(Wanda can still see in Pietro’s mind words he would never say aloud. _If anyone hurts you again I will never forgive myself_.)

(“No one,” she murmurs, “is going to hurt us here.”)

 

* * *

 

 **xxxiii.**  
Their rooms are the last to be shown to them, and are far from where Wanda’s rooms had been before.

“Yours,” Thor says. And then. “I thought you would not want reminders of my brother.”

Wanda’s smile is warm and genuine as Pietro’s hand slips from hers to search out the rooms. “Yes,” she says simply. “Thank you.”

Thor nods to the rooms. “Settle in,” he says. “We will have lunch shortly. When you are ready we can go to Heimdall and see what might be gleaned.”

 

* * *

 

 **xxxiv.**  
Lunch is a rather awkward affair, with Pietro barely inclined to eat even the food that Wanda puts on his plate, and Vision not needing food at all, but conversation rapidly warms between the Avengers and the Warriors Three (who are, Wanda notices, looking about as bruised as Thor). 

“It was not easy then,” she asks, “To take Asgard back?”

“No one,” Hogun replies, “Wanted to believe that Loki lived, let alone that he ruled. Thankfully, Fandral and Sif,” he nods briefly at the two, chatting animatedly with Natasha, “have some skill with illusions of their own. They broke Loki’s in front of much of the court. News spread.”

Wanda nods, considers. Nudges the plate in front of Pietro to encourage him to eat _something_. She had never quite forgot Asgard in her time back on Earth. It is vast and lovely as she remembers, but also seems brighter, warmer in colours and light than it was when she had first come. It feels much more welcoming, if anything, and even E seems less fussy than she had when Wanda first met her.

(Though, Wanda considers, that might be because she has matured.)

 

* * *

 

 **xxxv.**  
The twins curl, back to back, on the vast bed in the rooms they are given. There is another room and another bed, but Wanda does not feel right leaving her brother to sleep alone with his nightmares as prevalent as hers used to be. Instead she shares his bed, presses her back to his, lets his hand wrap around her unbroken one, even though the broken has now healed.

“Sleep,” Wanda murmurs, on the third night they are at Asgard, and for the first time since Lorelei Pietro tilts his head towards her offered scarlet. He sleeps, and Wanda’s scarlet keeps his nightmares from rising out of the great well beneath the tree of his mind.

Wanda’s own nightmares however, are an entirely different matter. She supposes she should have known that Loki would try to affect her while she was here, so close to his grasp, and she knows how well his manipulations might still hold her had not many tried similar things when she was younger. All the same, she feels his magic, slippery as an eel, cold as ice, as shining as steel, snaking its way into her mind.

He stands and smiles amidst the ruin of Novi Grad and Wanda wakes _screaming_.

 

* * *

 

 **xxxvi.**  
“I have you,” Pietro murmurs, tucking her against him as he ever has. Wanda had seen him hesitate, wait a split second on waking as he never had before, waiting for her to reach for him as she ever had, but it does not matter now, with his hand smoothing over her shoulder, cupping the back of her head gently as she presses her face to his shoulder. “I have you,” he murmurs, and she can feel the soft pressure as he presses a kiss to the side of her head. “I’m here,” he murmurs in soft Sokovian. “If you want to talk about it.”

Wanda shakes her head against his shoulder. “It was Loki,” she murmurs. “I would rather _forget_.”

They fall asleep as they had in rubble, as they had on the streets, as they have every time they have had a nightmare since they were six years old. Curled around each other, faces buried in shoulders, hands around each other’s arms, each clinging to the other like life.

 

* * *

 

 **xxxvii.**  
The next day they have to rise early all the same. The spell Heimdall wishes to try is obscure and old and requires the light of the dawning sun. Pietro runs Wanda down the length of the Bifrost to where Heimdall watches the dim sky. They are tired, both of them, but Wanda slips from Pietro’s arms as easily and as readily as she ever has, presses a kiss to his cheek and suggests he runs the length back to find them food.

“Are you sure you are well enough, my lady?” Heimdall asks. His sword is sheathed now, but his helm remains in its place on his head. Wanda nods.

“I have worked harder magics in worse circumstances,” she says in Sokovian, “and I tore through vibranium when trapped by grief. I am well enough for this.”

Wanda sees in his mind the image, seen distantly, of her Binding Lorelei. Heimdall smiles. “I take it,” he says, “that you know co-operative magic?”

“Loki trained me in it,” she says. “Absolute trust, I know. I trust you.”

“And from you,” Heimdall says, “Trust is not easily given.” his hand stretches out, dark skin distinct against the gold sheen of his armour.

Wanda takes it.

“The sun will rise soon,” he says. “As it rises, as its light falls throughout the city, we must send our magic chasing after, searching everywhere it falls and then on to where it does not. I will speak the incantation to Dagr and to Nótt if you will direct our magic out.”

Wanda nods, feels the golden magic that snakes through his palm towards her scarlet. “I can do that,” she promises.

“Good,” Heimdall says, smiling, “I would hate to see you try to process the visions it would give if our positions were reversed.”

Then the sun began to breach over the horizon and Heimdall began to chant.

 

* * *

 

**xxxviii.**  
_Heard a carol, mournful, holy,  
Chanted loudly, chanted lowly,_

Wanda remembers words remembered from another mind, a poem not one she had ever read. A memory of Strucker’s perhaps, or more likely List’s given the memory’s native English. It fits though, it fits all the same, matching the tone of the incantation Heimdall was chanting.

It swung between loud and low, sad and worshipful, and Wanda could feel the magic pouring into her, golden as the sun, mixing with her scarlet, into a powerful roiling mass waiting to be unleashed with the sun.

Heimdall’s chant reached its chorus and Wanda let the magic _out_.

It spilled out in a wave, gold and scarlet like a sunset, not a sunrise, but warm and bold and bright as any sunlight could be. It raced over the water, over the Bifrost bridge, chased the light of the rising sun towards the city of Asgard, through the buildings, through glass and hallway, through corridor and street, it filled the city and the buildings with the dawning light, chasing through people and buildings and vehicles like they were nothing, illuminating all it touched to Heimdall’s waiting eyes.

Then Wanda sent it deeper.

Gold chased through the ocean, lighting it up in all the colours of the Bifrost. Scarlet was sent through stone and rock, chasing through shadows like the light of magma. Wanda found their mingling of their magic, the rich shade of amber, and sent it to dim rooms, rooms far from sunlight and lit them up also, bright and glowing to Heimdall’s waiting sight. Wanda stretched the magic through the solid metal and stone of the buildings, through the memories held by a place so rich in magic and history as Asgard, and Heimdall offered her still more magic to cast out in the spell’s web. 

Wanda sent the magic wider and farther, Heimdall chanted on, _mournful, holy,/ chanted loudly, chanted lowly_  until the sun lifted fully from the horizon.

His hand fell from hers. His magic ebbed.

“We have found him,” Heimdall says.

 

* * *

 

 **xxxix.**  
Pietro finds them soon afterwards, carrying one sandwich and eating another.

“I _felt_  that,” he says to Wanda in Sokovian as he hands the sandwich to her. “That magic. You did that?”

He sounds, for once in all their lives, surprised at the extent of Wanda’s abilities.

“Half the magic was Heimdall’s,” she says. “And I only sent it out. He cast the spell and received the sights. All I did was direct it.”

“Which is no mean feat,” Heimdall says. “Especially when you do not know Asgard as well as an Asgardian.”

Wanda smiles slightly at the praise. “Would you like me to tell Thor?” she asks. “Or will you tell him yourself?”

“The Lady Sif will be coming shortly, to learn of the location and to assemble a group to reach it,” Heimdall says, and flicks a hand gently towards the city. “Return,” he says. “Relax. I suspect we shall all enjoy Loki’s reaction when we return Odin to his throne.”

 

* * *

 

 **xl.**  
The twins decide to do exactly that. The others relax in the large room where they had lunch on the first day, Vision speaking to Thor or the Warriors Three, or some other Asgardian, Natasha speaking to Vision, or reading a book, or occasionally making notes on her tablet, and sending messages back to Earth.

They find a seat and sit in the large room and relax. Wanda rests her head on Pietro’s lap, and Pietro’s hand combs through her hair, his other hand holding her unbroken one. (He still, Wanda has noticed, will not touch the hand that was broken.)

It is peaceful, and calming, and the twins bask in having no task, enjoying safety and being allowed some peace. Wanda lets her mind spin out, feeling the shapes and colours of the minds around her, the great weave of the magics that exist throughout Asgard, the layers of enchantments laid on this one room, all designed to ensure their safety as best they might be able. Pietro… Pietro ponders.

His words are soft when they finally call Wanda out of her observance.

“In the end,” he says in soft Sokovian, “Loki is to blame for so much.”

“Hmm?” Wanda’s eyes open and watch him. Stretching gently towards her mind he can feel the thoughts lining up in her mind, Loki leaving the sceptre, the sceptre giving them their powers, their powers getting Pietro killed, Loki calling Wanda to him, and letting Lorelei loose to hurt Pietro when Wanda left.

“We have always been odd to everyone else,” he says. “But we would not be so broken now if he had not meddled. He manipulated you, all he did to you-” (Wanda can see the memories she gave him flicking through his mind, rapidfire and greyscale, in perfect clarity and his mind unflinching even at the worst of them) “-and then letting Lorelei out, her having me hurt you, and all that has done to us-” (Wanda does not need to see his mind to know the nightmares he has. She has woken to his screams more often this last week than she has since the experiments) “-were it not for him we might be happier.”

“That is true,” Wanda says. And then, as the thought flashes across her brother’s mind: “He is kept in a cell with walls made of force fields now. You do not know the key to shut it off, the codes to let you pass through. You cannot take vengeance on him. He is of Asgard enough that they get to judge him. Do not seek vengeance Pietro.” Her hand rises, cups Pietro’s stubbled cheek. “Remember how well vengeance went last time.”

Pietro’s eyes fix on Wanda’s, blink slowly, his head dips in a nod. The thought vanishes into the winds of Pietro’s mind. “It is tempting,” he murmurs. “That is all.”

 

* * *

 

 **xli.**  
Pietro knows that some nights Wanda sleeps poorly, even when she doesn’t wake him when she screams out of nightmares. Sometimes she wakes in silence, sits with Eithne and Estrie, letting the amphisbaena comfort her for things she did not want to bother him with. He does not mind terribly. He knows, down to his bones, that if it matters Wanda will always come to him. He is grateful, in the mornings, that she lets him sleep, lets him rest under the scarlet she ushers into his mind, taming his speed to sensible, manageable levels, keeping him calm and focussed, and trapping his nightmares in the well beneath his tree or in the biting winds far above it.

That doesn’t mean he likes it.

Lorelei’s freedom, Lorelei’s _cruelty_ , has hurt his ability to protect her, has meant he needs the protection that he had always provided to Wanda. He knows, now, that Wanda is more than able to protect herself (scarlet in minds, and scarlet warping objects, scarlet _magic_ weaving its way through the world all at Wanda’s whim) but still, still his instinct is to protect her, his little sister, who he has protected since they were ten years old.

He hates that Lorelei, freed by _Loki_ , has damaged his ability to do that.

 

* * *

 

 **xlii.**  
Wanda sleeps, her unbroken hand wrapped around his. Her other hand, the hand he broke, has healed without trouble after the donation of his blood, but he still dares not touch it, dares not remind himself and Wanda anew of what he did. (What Lorelei made him do, he knows that is how Wanda would have him think of it, but it was _he_ who could not break free of the control, it was _he_ who had lifted the hammer and brought it smashing down.)

(It was _he_ , of all people, who had _hurt_ her.)

He knows it is a foolish and dangerous idea to try to seek revenge on Loki for what he has done, but foolish and dangerous has always been his forte. (There is much, he knows, that he will do for Wanda’s sake.) He knows Loki has not been stealing into his mind as Loki does into Wanda’s - he might be able to _feel_  magic but he does not think he has any of his own to lure Loki with, and besides, Wanda’s scarlet in his mind keeps him safe from things such as Loki or his now-destroyed sceptre. Lorelei was an exception. 

He wants, very much, to hurt Loki. Firstly, for hurting Wanda, for luring her here and lying to her, for manipulating her and playing on freely given trust when he was not able to protect her. Secondly, for Lorelei, for letting her loose, turning her out to pasture on Earth where she could trap him into her service and have him hurt Wanda. Thirdly…

His hand wraps around Wanda’s, lifts it, presses a kiss to her knuckles. Thirdly for the nightmares Loki caused Wanda almost nightly.

It is tempting, oh so tempting, to break into Loki’s cell and beat him into nothing more than a bloody smear.

 

* * *

 

 **xliii.**  
Pietro did not know what to make of the cells, really. He can see Lorelei, distantly, far at the end of the hall, Loki, on the other hand is nearer, but apparently engrossed in a book. He cannot see through illusions as Wanda can, but he does not think this is one. _Speed,_  he knows. _Speed is key_. 

He is a racing blur, invisible to almost everyone. Wanda’s presence in his mind has been lighter than ever after Lorelei, beyond what he has asked and accepted of her, and speeds that used to send him reeling are far simpler to reach. 

He finds the code to get him into Loki’s cell and prepares to punch.

 

* * *

 

 **xliv.**  
Wanda wakes to the feeling of blood splattering over her fists. No. Not her fists. _Pietro’s_.

She chases his blue down the bridge between their minds, finds him far below the city in the cells, sees through his eyes and sees, of all people’s, _Loki’s_  face.

 _Pietro_ , she thinks. _Pietro what are you_ ** _doing?_**

The winds of Pietro’s mind are strong and harsh, biting things, fierce with his anger. _Killing him_ , Pietro thinks. _For what he has done. He will never hurt you or I again._

 _Stop,_  Wanda thinks, sends it with as much force as she dares into Pietro’s mind, keeping it just shy of an order. _Don’t murder him. Don’t become as bad as he is._  Wanda feels the winds of her brother’s mind howl around his tree and knows he will not.

She rises, lurches to the cupboard in the corner of the room. She needs Asgardian clothes, clothes the guards will recognise her in, ones that will mark her as their Lady Wanda Maximoff of Midgard, and not simply the Avengers’ Scarlet Witch. She finds the black dress, the scarlet robe, the golden belt, she finds the burgundy blouse, the blue shawl, finds her boots, from Earth and well-worn to her feet and runs through the halls of Asgard down towards the dungeons.

She feels when the guards haul Pietro off of Loki, and feels her brother’s still-burning, still-howling rage.

 

* * *

 

 **xlv.**  
“I am here,” Wanda breathes into his ear. Her arms are wrapped around him, regardless of blood, her back firmly to where Loki lies crumpled and wheezing in his cell. The guards step back. Wanda’s hand - the one he had not broken - tangles through his hair, holding him gently but firmly to her, and E curls up, stretching one head to curl around his ear. “Why?” Wanda asks. “You said you would not.”

Pietro shakes his head. “I said it was tempting.”

He feels Wanda sighing against him, her hand combing through his hair, her scarlet gently watching in his mind. _Are you well?_  it asks, spelling out the scarlet words against his sky.

“I am well,” he murmurs into Wanda’s ear. “I am _fantastic_.”

Wanda huffs a laugh, the first true laugh she has given in a long while, and gently looses her hold of him. “Come on,” she says. “Let us clean this blood off you.”

 

* * *

 

 **xlvi.**  
It is when Wanda is dabbing the blood off the fast-healing scrapes on his hand, that he truly begins to consider. He said fantastic, and certainly, in that one moment, still high on adrenaline, it was certainly true. But now, now he has had his chance to take out his anger at Loki for what he has done to them… he’s not calm no. He’s not entirely well. He still fears hurting Wanda more than he ever has before, and he still dares not touch the hand he broke.

In the end, he supposes, beating the shit out of Loki, while cathartic, hasn’t helped matters much. He wonders if this is how Wanda felt after Binding Lorelei, or ripping out Ultron’s heart. That it was cathartic but only did so much. That there was always other things to do to solve the problem.

(Wanda, in the end, is the one who has solved almost all the problems they come across. Pietro only keeps her safe.)

Wanda, he knows, had not taken his death well. Had been distant and not quite there to everyone else, had trained, and spent much time alone and eventually fled to Asgard in the hope of seeing him returned. (He has her memories of Asgard, even those he wishes he did not, because he had promised to protect her and to tell the tale she did not wish to have to tell.) He knows, in turn, that he did not take well to Lorelei’s control, that, by Wanda’s words whispered into his mind, Lorelei’s order had almost broken his sanity, that, even now, she notices his hesitation, his moments of doubt.

In Pietro’s calming mind the winds of his thoughts sigh through his tree of self and memory.

Pietro reaches out, and takes the hand he broke.

 

* * *

 

 **xlv.**  
Later they sit with the others. Thor had, by virtue of ruling Asgard while Eir works on waking his father, had to reprimand Pietro for his actions, but had murmured to them, before leaving to work on other aspects of Asgard, that he at the least _understood_  even if he was not meant to say so. Vision nods in acknowledgement, making no obvious judgement of them, while Natasha quietly scowls at them, but passes them her tablet with something of a smile to show a video of Clint grinning at them, both thumbs up. Wanda does not need to hear Natasha say it, does not need to wait until they are back to Earth where she could read Clint’s mind to know that he approved when he was told.

They sit, as ever, shoulder to shoulder, listen to Natasha tell them of things she has learned, or Vision tell them of things he has seen. It is peaceful and it is pleasant, and when Pietro’s hand - still slightly shaking - reaches for the hand that had been broken, Wanda lifts their clasped hands and presses the lightest of kisses to his knuckles.

 _I don’t judge you_ , she sends to his mind. _I never have._

At last Pietro begins to feel _right_ again.

 

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave comments!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Prompt: Nothing beside remains.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7925473) by [EssayOfThoughts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EssayOfThoughts/pseuds/EssayOfThoughts)




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